Has blender caught up?
No, Windows 8.X is still an insult of an OS. Windows 7 is still the way to go and less troublesome.
Windows 8 is working great for me – no problems. I haven’t upgraded to 8.1 yet because it is incompatible with certain older software that I still use, but hopefully workarounds for those will emerge at some point.
I’ve been using Windows 8 since release and haven’t had any issues with it yet. In fact, it seems to run faster for me in most cases.
Windows 8.1 works great for me, runs faster than Win 7, and personally switching to a Win 7 machine slows me down now. Some people are just biased, and an insult to intelligence… 
If you really don’t like the Metro start screen, just install Classic Shell or Start 8